Universal Music To Steve Jobs: DRM-Free 'This' ITunes Boy

By Adario Strange August 10, 2007 9:57:09 AMCategories: Music
The word in the music biz is that Universal Music will soon begin test selling DRM-free music to nearly everyone (Wal-Mart, Google, Amazon.com, Best Buy, Real Networks' Rhapsody, PureTracks, Passalong Networks and Transworld) except Apple’s iTunes. Consider this the opening salvo from the music business versus the control freak known as Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s CEO.
Universal’s test is slated to run until next year, at which point we can assume the company will either admit defeat and finally sign a long-term deal with Apple, or realize their own power and start the flood of record labels opening up DRM-free music sales websites, thus putting iTunes on the fast track to irrelevancy. Based on my prior experience as a music businessperson, my guess is that Universal Music will realize that they need the tech savvy of a Internet business partner. Whether that turns out to be Amazon or Apple is probably just a matter of a couple of zeros.

http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/08/universal-mus-1.html